


My Red-Haired Boy

by HoneyMangos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:41:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24069781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneyMangos/pseuds/HoneyMangos
Summary: This is all just to entertain my boyfriend so I'm sticking to bare minimum canon - it's Hogwarts, there's not going to be any mention of Harry or the others, Lupin and Dumbledore will still be there because I like them, snape will not because slughorn makes a much better potions professor because he's not a dick don't @ me, and every other character will be completely out of canon
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 4





	My Red-Haired Boy

Sometimes it was difficult for Magnus to wake up when he was at Hogwarts. The beds were always so soft, warm, and supportive, but in such a way that wasn't immediately noticeable. They were like the school itself as a whole in that sense - it had always felt like home to him. He was three weeks into his fifth year, and the homework was already beginning to increase in preparation for his OWLs. He still felt happy though, still comfortable, knowing he was where he was meant to be right now. Especially with his cat, Beef, who was purring softly in her sleep, nestled in a little crevice of his duvet next to him. It was wonderful - wonderful until the pillow hit his face, at least, forcing him into consciousness.

"Mags!" This was the gentle, yet firm wake-up call from his friend Kestrel in the bed to the left of his. "You gotta wake up, Hagrid wanted today's lesson to be an early one, right?"

Kestrel was a sweet person, and one of Magnus' closer friends here at Hogwarts. They were a tall, kind, and seemed to emit nothing but calmness, and they were almost always looking after Magnus whenever they were near him- they'd been dealing with Magnus since their first year, so it seemed at least to have become part of their routine by now - and Magnus was honestly grateful to have them around because of that. He was not grateful for the pillow to the face, however.

"Dude, you know Beef gets scared when you do that. Do you enjoy scaring my cat?" Magnus sounded only mildly perturbed as he started to sit himself up and scratch the slight stubble on his jaw, while doing his best to convey what irritation he did have in a glare at Kestrel as he spoke to them. This only seemed to get a laugh from his friend, though.

"I'm sorry, but you know she doesn't even notice. Look - she hasn't even moved." They pointed at the furry mound next to Magnus' lap and sure enough, Beef hadn't moved an inch despite both the pillow ending up on top of her sleeping form and Magnus sitting up in the bed next to her, which had pulled the duvet from under her.

"Dumb baby" Magnus muttered, as he poked her gently. The only response he got was a soft "mrrp" from her, which was still more of a reaction than he had expected, and more than enough to put a little smile on his face.

"You've got a solid 45 before class, my dude." 

It always amazed Magnus that Kestrel thought things that far ahead - like factoring in the time he would need for breakfast, getting ready, and getting to the actual class before waking him up. It probably wouldn't be too hard to process for most people, but Magnus had a habit of forgetting that sometimes, before you do things, you need to think.

"Thanks man, I'd be buggered without you. Reckon Rose is already up?" He had gotten out of his bed by now, and was busy throwing his robes on for the day, making sure he had something warm on underneath to keep him toasty while he was out on the grounds for the early lesson - Hogwarts was starting to get cold already, so it seemed like an early winter was on its way.

"Oh, no way - she's as bad as you. Send Beef up to get her when you go down." Kestrel was still nose deep in his potions book, barely paying attention to anything besides the book and whatever words they were listening to from their friend.

Magnus got himself, his equipment and his supplies for the day ready soon enough, and picked Beef up off of his bed while ignoring her grumpy little squeaks of complaint and went down to the Gryffindor common room carrying her, giving Kestrel a quick wave as he rushed off. Sure enough, as soon as Magnus had put his cat down in the common she glared at him with all of the self pity and hatred her flat little face could convey, and ran off up the stairs to the girls dorm to find Rose. Beef was a large, cream coloured cat seemingly made of nothing but feet and a smushed face attached to a large pile of fur. She was a picky cat too, and she only really loved Magnus, his brother, and Rose. Rose was Magnus' best friend, and since his brother Sam had left Hogwarts after the previous year (he was working in wizard relations in Gringotts at this point - helping sort out the many, many complaints), Beef was left with only Magnus and Rose to spread her affection between. That meant whenever she was mad at one of them, she'd end up waddling over to the other to curl up on - which, taking into consideration how heavy a cat Beef was, meant she made a pretty good alarm clock in her own right. This was how both Magnus and Rose would usually wake each other up most weekends - whoever Beef decided to sleep with would be sent to wake the other up if they weren't up already, and although this was a Tuesday morning and not a weekend, Magnus needed Rose awake for their shared class that morning.

After the loud thuds of Beef going up the stairs quieted down, Magnus sat himself down by the fire to start reading the lesson plan for his day - since it was only 6:10 there weren't many people in the common room, so he was able to get a nice spot right by the main fireplace. There were a few other people in his class up too, but that wasn't too surprising to him. This year Professor Lupin had arranged to do joint classes with Hagrid for a while, and since almost all of the people in Magnus' class did both Defence against the Dark Arts and Care of Magical Creatures, Dumbledore had given it the all-clear. Professor Lupin had seemed pretty excited to teach his students about what kinds of potentially problematic creatures were more common in England - Magnus remembered him saying it was "Just as important to learn how to protect yourself from unsavoury creatures as it is unsavoury wizards", but in his opinion, he thought Lupin just liked showing his students anything more impressive than just a simple book every lesson. So far Magnus had covered boggarts with Lupin, gnomes with Hagrid, and his first proper cross-class lesson had been on knuckers - a smaller type of water dragon, one that was only about as big as a pug but very hard to spot, and smart enough to know drowning people could be fun sometimes. From what he could find in his notes from last lesson, the class today was meant to be hobgoblins. This seemed like a big step up from a dog-sized water bastard in Magnus' opinion, but he supposed he couldn't really judge Lupin's choices as a teacher - Hagrid's, definitely, but not Lupin's. Either way, Magnus had decided to look through his textbooks quickly, just in case Hagrid was getting too carried away with the things he brought in for class again.

The book he'd opened became a lot less interesting very quickly though, because two seconds after he'd opened it Magnus could hear a very discontent Beef thudding down the stairs toward him, angrily squeaking with every step. He closed the book, and reached down from the comfort of the armchair he was sitting in to give Beef a little scratch on the cheek as she waddled toward him.

"Poor little lady. Did you get kicked out of bed all over again?" He cooed, smushing Beef's cheeks as she purred up at him.

"She's not a little lady, and she deserves it. She put all of her weight on my boob to wake me up" 

Rose was coming down the stairs now, scowling at the cat as she walked down, straightening her robes. He would've said she looked pretty today, but she looked pretty every day. Rose was his oldest friend, and he loved her to pieces - even if she was taller than he was too, but it wasn't exactly like he was the tallest 15 year old in the world, standing at a whopping 5'6. She was a girl who would've made a great keeper in quidditch if she could fly, and sometimes secretly Magnus was disappointed as she couldn't, and she was a girl who somehow managed to have exactly the same tastes and opinions as him. She was the easiest person for Magnus to be around beside his brother - to the point where he and Rose had agreed to just get married at 35 and make themselves everyone else's problem if neither of them found a man by then. He was always glad to have her around - to talk about boys, teachers that sucked, why the both of them were better than everyone else was - they even liked to watch the same muggle tv shows when they were home for the summer. 

"Did you try not leaving your tits underneath my cat?" Mags chuckled as she sat down on the arm of his chair, still scowling at Beef.

"Stupid beef baby." She mumbled this to herself, ignoring him as she reached across to grab his notes from last lesson. "Aw. it's my turn for notes today, isn't it?" She sounded like she was let down by this, but she knew that they took the note-taking in turns, so she couldn't have been surprised.

"Yep. Now move so I can get up, we need breakfast before we go to class." He shoved her off the arm of his chair lightly, bent over to give Beef one last scratch, and turned to Rose. "We've got about twenty five minutes until class." He went to turn around and walk toward the portrait hole out into the main staircase, but stopped as he saw her properly, looking at her hair. "Remind me to charm your hair again tonight, you're gonna start looking ginger again in a day or two"

Rose smacked his arm for this as they started walking, and angrily whispered toward him "don't say that so loud. You know I hate being reminded about it." Rose wasn't really ginger, in Magnus' opinion she had a gorgeous natural hair colour - a soft auburn, closer to brown than anything but it still turned orange when the light hit it. For the past few years he'd been the one in charge of performing the simple charm on her hair to turn it more of a chestnut brown instead, and redoing it whenever it faded.

"I'm sorry, how would you prefer me say it? Should I just tell you that you're looking a bit like a Welsh dragon today? I'm sure that'd make you feel great too, dumbass." Magnus chuckled at himself, finding himself to be the most entertaining person he knew once again.

This got another slap on the arm as they walked into the great hall for breakfast, and a muffled "Bitch" from Rose behind him as they entered the Great Hall for breakfast.

The Hall was always impressive, even when mostly empty, as it was for them now. The four house tables stretched out in front of them, each piled with mountains of steaming hot porridge and eggs, stacks of bread and toast, faintly smoking platters of bacon, sausages and kippers, among so many more dishes - all ready for Magnus and Rose to ignore as they sat down together, already used to such a variety. Breakfast didn't last the pair particularly long - they sat down to get some pumpkin juice and toast each, double checked they had everything they needed, and had a quick conversation about how the lesson would go - it was mostly a concerned one about what exactly these hobgoblins would be, and why Hagrid wasn't with most of the other teachers who all seemed to be getting ready for their classes too. Magnus locked eyes with Professor Lupin briefly as he scanned the teachers table at the end of the hall, and was happy to note he was looking significantly less pale than he was last week for some reason, so he gave him a small wave and a grin before he and Rose stood up to leave. Professor Lupin was probably his favourite teacher here at Hogwarts, even if he did need a few days off once a month. He started asking Rose why she thought Lupin had to have those days off for the third time since they started classes, not really expecting a different answer to normal, just wanting to pass the time it would take to get to their Care of Magical Creatures class.

"A curse maybe?" He'd given this suggestion twice already when they'd spoken about this previously.

"Cursed how? Oh no, you mean the dreaded 'sleep for five days' curse? And someone manages to curse a Hogwarts teacher with that one specific curse every four weeks?"

She shoved Magnus lightly as they walked out of the hall, punctuating it with a "Dumbass" as she did. It wasn't a hard push, but Magnus still saw it as an opportunity to start some another dumb competition between them as they walked, so he pushed Rose back just a little harder than she did, punctuating his push with a "Dumbass" of his own. Both him and Rose giggled at this, and ended up shoving each other with their shoulders with every other step they took. He was focused entirely on keeping his balance every time Rose pushed him, doing his best not to move no matter how hard she shoved him - and he did pretty well, until they turned the corner to go past the dungeons toward the main door and he walked straight into someone, knocking both him and the stranger head over heel.

Getting embarrassed wasn't something Magnus normally did, but neither was fall almost entirely on top of another person because he was being stupid with a friend. He quickly got up and brushed himself off - Rose had helped grab his arm and pull him up - and he held down a hand to help the stranger up. He'd knocked over a Slytherin boy, just a bit younger than he was by the look of it, and surprisingly cute. He had bright red hair - clearly charmed to be that colour - it was a shorter length, in curtains above his eyes - Magnus wasn't sure if hazel was the right colour for them, they were a light brown, maybe just slightly green too, he couldn't tell - he had a cute little nose too, with a little septum ring - and wow, the jawline this boy had was really nice, it wasn't chiselled but it wasn't soft, either way it was definitely noticeable - and his lips, god they're such a nice shape - and Magnus didn't even process that the boy was already standing until the he saw those lips start to move.

"Uh - Thanks for the hand there, I guess." Magnus felt the blood rush to his face as the boy spoke. His voice was cute too, even if he did obviously sound a little mad. "Can I have my hand back now?"

His face got even hotter as he realised - he'd given the boy his hand to help him up, and now he was just standing here holding it as if he was being taught how to shake hands for the first time like some dumbass. He let go quickly, and fumbled to find something to say so he didn't seem like a complete freak.

"O-oh, right, sorry. I didn't see you, I was being stupid, this is completely my fault." Magnus knelt down to pick up the boys book he'd dropped and to look away, not wanting to seem embarrassed in front of the cute stranger, and handed the book back. "Are you all okay?" The boy looked fine, in fact he barely even had any dirt on him at all from the fall, but Magnus felt bad and wanted to double check.

The boy was the one who blushed this time as they met eyes again - only slightly, but it showed up easily on his pale skin. He smiled slightly at Magnus, and went to speak, until another Slytherin stuck his head out of the door to the Great Hall and yelled back at him - "Hurry up! I need your help before potions!" The boy lost the little bit of redness that was in his cheeks, and muttered a "Oh, sorry" as he ran off to his friend in the Great Hall. Magnus didn't even realise he was still kneeling until Rose kicked him.

"Magnus, up."

He felt his cheeks warm a little once again as he stood up, watching the boy turn into the Hall. He then felt his cheeks warm up a little more, realising he probably looked pretty stupid.

"Let's uh - let's get to lesson" he mumbled, grabbing Rose's arm to lead her out of the door with him. "That was totally your fault though." He didn't need to look at her to feel her eyes boring into the side of his skull as he tried to avoid eye contact.

"Magnus." She sounded surprisingly stern as she spoke to him - she didn't often use his full name either, so it only added to the embarrassment he was beginning to feel. "I know you don't know him. Wanna tell me why you're blushing so much over a Slytherin?"

"I wasn't at a -" he stopped his sentence immediately, having looked over at Rose and her expression as soon as he'd started to lie. "It wasn't that much, was it?" He could still feel the warmth on his cheeks as they walked across the grass toward Hagrid's hut, focusing now on the backs of some of their classmates who were walking a little bit further ahead instead of Rose as they spoke.

"You were the one who looked like a Welsh dragon. You're still red now." She didn't sound disappointed anymore, but he still didn't reply. "Who do you think he was then?" Rose had said this as they'd arrived at the hut, so Magnus had decided not to acknowledge her saying anything. The question was still burning in his mind, along with others - who was he? Would I see him around again? How stupid did I look? Was he blushing too? The questions swirled inside his head up until the door to Hagrid's hut slammed open, revealing their teacher as he stepped out holding a large cage in his arms.

Hagrid was a half-giant, meaning he was absolutely enormous compared to a normal man - and especially compared to the students of Hogwarts. His hands were easily the size of a whole steering wheel each, his arms thicker than anyones had a right to be in Magnus' opinion, and his greying hair and beard were both thick and wild enough to lose an entire litter of kittens in. Despite looking frankly terrifying to anyone who didn't know him though, Hagrid was possibly the sweetest soul in the entirety of Hogwarts - if a little over enthusiastic about some of the creatures he taught about sometimes. The cage he was carrying however, did not seem nearly as friendly. It was about 4 feet tall, and about 2 foot wide too - and even though it was covered with what looked like one of Hagrid's cloaks, it was shaking violently, and there was a low, guttural screech that came from it.

"Mornin' class! Who's ready fer some 'obgoblins then?"

Hagrid set the cage down, and began the lesson. Both Magnus and Rose were surprised to learn a hobgoblin was simply a less helpful subspecies of a brownie - not, in fact a horrible type of goblin, but a horrible stout little man-shaped creature, about a foot tall and covered in warts and a faint mucus, who wore nothing but a loincloth. Their heads and hands were disproportionately large, almost unnervingly so, but that was also the case for brownies. What made them different from brownies, was that they seemed to only live for causing some kind of mischief in some way instead of helping as a brownie normally would, and as a result of them being surprisingly hardy, their idea mischief often left wizards who were stuck with them around with serious injuries. 

The rest of the lesson seemed like it was barely happening for Magnus, though. After the initial surprise of actually seeing the creature for the first time, he was soon lost in his thoughts again. They weren't even full thoughts - it was more like it was just vague sentences, questions, floating around his brain. The red-haired boy was at the centre of them all. He couldn't help but wonder if he would see him again, and he desperately felt like he needed to know more. How much younger was he? Assuming he was younger at all, he could've just had a babyface. Was the boy taller than him? He thought so, and he wouldn't be surprised, but he wasn't sure. What did that other Slytherin need him for? Were they dating? What was his name? He didn't like just referring to him as the "red-haired boy" in his mind, it didn't seem right to him. The question Magnus focused on the most though - the one he really couldn't wrap his head around - why was he so caught up in this? There were hundreds of students at Hogwarts. Why did one boy suddenly take up so much space in his mind?

"Oh my god, Mags. You didn't even pay attention in Defence. Lupin was straight up staring at you half of the lesson, I think he thought you were sick. You've barely been paying attention to me too - and I'm sorry, but I'm clearly the most important person here." Rose's laughter at her own joke snapped him out of his stupor. He barely noticed that they were already back in the Great Hall for lunch, and sat at the Gryffindor table with her once again.

"Ah shit - I'm sorry Rose, I've just been -" he cut himself off as he looked at her, seeing there wasn't even a hint of a frown on her face. "I've been shitty today I know, and I know it's dumb, but I can't stop thinking about that red-haired boy." He saw her smile as he spoke, leaving her looking irritatingly smug.

"You don't know anything about him, you know that right?" She even sounded smug as she spoke now. He hated it.

"Know anything about who?" Kestrel had sat down on the other side of Magnus now, accompanied by a few other Gryffindor students in their year, and with a strong scent of burnt hair between them all as they sat down. Rose's face had now reached a level of smug bastard that Magnus had never seen before - he hated it.

"Oh, this bitch has a crush on some Slytherin he knocked on his ass earlier. Why do you smell so bad?" The smug expression was gone now, as Rose scrunched her nose in disgust as Kestrel sat down. There was a sigh from one of the Gryffindors across the table who came in with Kestrel and who was looking particularly burnt and sad as she questioned this.

"Jonesey set fire to his entire cauldron." Kestrel was entirely nonplussed as they answered, setting their bag to his side and grabbing an apple, quick to turn the conversation back to what Rose had said before. "Who's the Slytherin?"

"Hey, no - Kes, we all have potions together, you would've been in Muggle Studies just now. I wanna know how Jonesey fucked up a whole cauldron in a lesson he wasn't even meant to have it out in." Magnus was determined not to be made an ass of, especially since the shift in lesson plans today meant that the usual period after lunch on Tuesday was now empty instead of being filled with Care of Magical Creatures, and if Rose got started now she wouldn't let him hear the end of it all night.

"Shut up, it's embarrassment time." Rose had cut Kestrel off before they could even speak. "He looked younger than us, bright red curtains, taller than Mags but shorter than us and wears a pin that changes between a gay and a trans pride flag." The smug expression was back on her face, and it was aimed directly at Magnus once again. He knew there was no point in fighting it now, so he decided to glare at her instead, until he processed what she'd said.

"Wait, how did you even notice - wait no, was he taller than me?" He could feel his cheeks warm slightly again as he asked, knowing he sounded far too eager, and he hated it. Rose seemed to love it, however, as she decided to look even more smug somehow. He hated that too. Kestrel was the one who broke him away from the daggers he was trying to stare into Rose, though.

"You mean like the Slytherin who just stood up now?" Magnus could hear the grin in Kestrel's voice as they spoke, but he couldn't stop himself from bursting up out of his seat. Sure enough, as soon as he'd stood up he saw that same red-haired boy directly across the hall, picking up a bag and turning toward the main doors, completely unaware of the three of them now staring.

"Shit." His mind was blank, and he couldn't move.

"Go!" Rose almost shouted at him as she smacked him right on his ass, leaving his left cheek more numb than he'd ever rightly admit. "I'll take your bag back to the dorm, now get out of here dumbass!" She'd stopped deliberately sounding smug at this point and it was honestly a relief to him, because it meant that this wasn't all just an excuse to mock him. She sounded genuine, and urgent, so Magnus did the first thing his brain told him to - pick up one of his favourite cookies from the table and run to the door to meet the red-haired boy, as both Kestrel and Rose cheered him on just a little too loud for a normal Tuesday lunch, even for the people at the Gryffindor table.

He got to the doors barely thirty seconds after the boy had gone through them, and stopped for a second to make sure he wasn't winded. After he was certain he wouldn't sound out of breath when speaking, he turned the corner and almost walked straight into the boy once more - he was standing right in front of Magnus, now barely two inches away from his face - it looked like he was headed back into the Hall just as Magnus was leaving it. It barely took a second for him to feel his cheeks burning once more, and he took a half step back, almost at the same time as the boy, so they weren't stuck at such an intimate distance. Now that he hadn't run directly into him, Magnus could see that Rose was right and the boy was taller than he was, if only by an inch, and that he was blushing too.

"Hi. I never properly said sorry, or who I was earlier." He could feel the burning in his cheeks ease up as he spoke to the boy - but there was something about actually looking him in the eyes and talking to him that just stopped the embarrassment of it all. He held up the cookie, making the boy's face go from a simple blush to a confused blush, which was still far too cute for him to cope with. "My name's Magnus, and I'm sorry I knocked you over. I was being dumb and careless, and I hope I didn't hurt you - and this - uh." He looked at his hand and froze, the fire in his cheeks starting to come back a little as he actually processed that he was just giving a stranger a cookie after they'd just left lunch, and that he probably looked incredibly stupid.

The boy's face turned back to that slight grin he'd seen earlier as he looked from away the ridiculous gift of affection and back into Magnus' eyes, and he took the cookie. Their fingers brushed against each other by only a fraction, but it was enough to make them both turn a marginally darker shade of red each. Magnus could feel his heart in the back of his throat, beating rapidly.

"It's a cookie?" He could hear the boy almost giggling when he spoke, half questioning, half stating. "Thank you. I'm Spencer." 

"Yeah, I didn't have anything else on me, I saw you as you got up to leave, and they're my favourite cookies, so…" He trailed off slightly, getting caught up in Spencer's eyes as he realised he finally knew his name, but brought himself back to earth as he realised that meant he could actually talk to the boy now. "You don't have to take it, I know it's dumb. I just felt bad about earlier, and I wanted to at least say sorry."

Spencer was meeting his gaze with the same intensity as Magnus, and something about looking into his eyes made it impossible to look away. Both of their blushes seemed to have faded now, and they were both just standing, strangely comfortable in that moment. He took a small bite out of the cookie before he spoke, breaking the silence that was quickly building. 

"At least?" There was an innocence to his voice as he spoke, and Magnus felt it was almost deliberate. He couldn't help but smile at that, and as soon as he began to smile he remembered his confidence.

"Yeah, at least. I figured I'd at least get a chance to say sorry, but I was hoping I'd be able to get a conversation too. You seem pretty cool, I think I'd like to know you a little better." His hand went instinctively to his face, rubbing along the slight stubble he had on his cheek as he tried not to smirk. He didn't want to seem too cocky, and he knew he could sometimes, but the way Spencer was just barely looking down on him with that slight smile on his lips and slight blush in his cheeks made him feel pretty confident talking to him right now. Spencer didn't seem to mind this either, as he looked down and blushed a little harder.

"I don't think I'd hate that." The more he spoke the more Magnus thought he picked up on some kind of accent - he wasn't entirely sure though. He made a mental note to ask when they got a proper chance to talk. "I'm sorry, I gotta get back to my friends though. I might've slightly poisoned one of them and they probably need something for it at this point." This time Spencer was the one who was smirking, and Magnus couldn't help but smile in response

"Sure, sorry. I'll let you get back to them." He stepped away from his position at the corner of the hall's entrance, because even if he wasn't really in the way he didn't want Spencer to feel like he had to be kept there. Neither of them moved away immediately though, their eyes still locked with a slight blush on both faces, so he decided to put the confidence he'd found again to the test. "Real quick though, would you be busy on Saturday? I know a nice spot by the lake where we could have that conversation, if you wanted." His blush had come back, but his confidence hadn't wavered so far. Especially not with how much Spencer had blushed when he said that.

"Yeah, I think that'd be nice." Spencer started to turn the corner, then looked back to Magnus. "I'll send an owl with a time if that's okay, I really need to get going. Thanks for the cookie though." he gave one last smile and turned into the hall, giving Magnus just enough time to notice that he had a cute butt too. 

Magnus smiled, and started to walk back to the Gryffindor common room. He was smiling for the rest of the afternoon too, his brain once again swirling with thoughts about the red-haired boy. 

Spencer.


End file.
